From: HENDERAM@aol.com
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 5:05 PM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: Docket 00N-1396 & Docket 00D-1598
To: FDA
From: Anne T. Henderson (see signature line)
I am writing about your proposed rules on genetically engineered agricultural
products. Given the huge potential risk of these products, you must amend
these rules to require:
* mandatory pre-market safety testing
* pre-market environmental review
* labeling of GE foods
* public access to adequate information for independent review
In addition, the FDA should not restrict voluntary labeling of non-GE foods,
but instead issue guidelines to ensure that such labels are accurate and
truthful.
GE products could be toxic, cause allergic responses, have lower nutritional
value, and compromise immune responses in consumers. GE crops, with their
mutant genes, might also invade the natural environment, forever altering
genetic structure, and possibly spread toxic forms of "life." For these
reasons, the FDA must require mandatory pre-market long-term health testing.
Without mandatory labeling, neither consumers nor health professionals will
know if an allergic or toxic reaction was the result of a genetically
engineered food. Consumers would be deprived of the critical knowledge needed
to hold
food producers liable should any of these novel products be hazardous.
The FDA must act in a way that restores public confidence in the integrity of
its review and regulation process. The perception that the FDA sees its role
as protecting and fostering the interests of the agricultural technology
industry, as opposed to protecting the public from its excesses, is
widespread.
To allow the general release of these products without careful review and
comprehensive labeling is a criminal abdication of your responsibility to the
American people.
Anne T. Henderson
Institute for Education and Social Policy
1640 Roxanna Road, NW
Washington, DC 20012
phone: 202 882-1582 fax: 202 882-2138